The Family Cookbook Project

Month: May 2024

  • Dying to Get Your Recipe Remembered

    Dying to Get Your Recipe Remembered

    Source: New York Times

    Some people will do anything to make sure their recipes are not forgotten when they pass on.

    The New York Times recently posted and article by Christina Morales that they say you can’t take it with you, but recipes do disappear when loved ones die. Some families have found a novel way to record them for posterity. The article is entitled Family Recipes Etched in Stone. Gravestone, That Is. and highlights several families that have had special recipes carved in stone so they are not forgotten.

    In cemeteries from Alaska to Israel, families have memorialized their loved ones with the deceased’s most cherished recipes carved in stone. These dishes — mostly desserts — give relatives a way to remember the sweet times and, they hope, bring some joy to visitors who discover them among the more traditional monuments.

    Our course, we at Family Cookbook Project, know there is a much easier way to preserve special recipes for future generations and create a lasting tribute to a someone who was a great cook – preserve their recipes in a printed family cookbook that can be shared and cherished.

    FamilyCookbookProject.com is an online publishing platform that makes it easy to create a printed personal cookbook filled with your own photos and recipes. Our program has helped thousands of individuals organize recipes by providing professionally designed covers and recipe layouts, automatically created table of contents and index of recipes for beautiful printed cookbooks.

    Creating a family cookbook is easy and makes a great gift. To find out how easy, create a free personal account at Family Cookbook Project.

     

    Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!

     

  • How To Create a Single Topic Cookbook

    How To Create a Single Topic Cookbook

    Do you have a lot of recipes of a specific type? Maybe you love to make cookies or pies or cakes. You can create a “mini cookbook” to organize your recipes and even share with family and friends using FamilyCookbookProject.com.

    With a few as 10 recipes, you can create a single category cookbook or multiple categories within a theme.

    For example, were I live, oysters plentiful and are some of the best in the world. My family eats a lot of oysters each summer and I thought it would be great to create a cookbook with just oyster recipes. It was so well received, it is now available on Amazon!

    You can buy a copy of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook by clicking on this link.

    Next, I plan on creating a BBQ mini cookbook and giving it out as gifts for Christmas to my friends and family.

    To create you own mini cookbook, go to the Production Center on your editor page and select “more cookbooks”. Here you can create your own mini cookbook and even import your recipes from your main cookbook using our recipe transfer tool.

     

     

    Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect, preserve and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. He is the author of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook (Available on Amazon) and the Cape Cod Cocktail Cookbook, both created using FamilyCookbookProject.com. He is also editor of the Donovan Family Cookbook, now it’s third printing.

    Follow Family Cookbook Project on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!

  • Family Cookbook Project has an “Award-winning” Newsletter

    The Family Cookbook Project (www.familycookbookproject.com) has been named the Best Cooking and Recipe Online Newsletter of 2024 by the Web Marketing Association’s 22nd annual Internet Advertising Competition Awards.  The Family Cookbook Project creates personalized cookbooks for individuals, families, church groups and schools.

    Chip Lowell, Co-Publisher of the Family Cookbook Project, stated, “The Great Family Cookbook Project is a website devoted to assisting families in gathering and preserving cherished recipes in a printed cookbook that can be handed down through generations. We are honored that the Web Marketing Association has recognized our communication efforts with this IAC Award. Our monthly newsletter, sent to our cookbook editors, is designed to help them maximize their cookbook creation experience. We will continue to enhance our website and communication programs to support families, schools, and church groups in creating both online and printed cookbooks that will become treasured heirlooms.”

    The Family Cookbook Project Website was started as a project in 2003 to help one family collect and organize a family cookbook. Overwhelming feedback from those who used the website led to its continued development and public launch.  Currently, more than 140,000 families have started family cookbooks using the website and have entered more than 2.6 million individual recipes.

    The newsletter, Food for Thought, is sent to more than 96,000 editors each month and features ideas on creating a better cookbook, program enhancements, featured recipes from other editors, editor testimonials and famous food quotes.

    Thousands of entries from around the world were adjudicated in 90 industry categories during this year’s competition. Entries were judged on creativity, innovation, impact, design, copy writing, memorability and use of the medium. The competition was judged by a team of independent Internet professionals representing a variety of relevant disciplines of Web site development. Judges included members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, creative directors, corporate marketing executives, content providers and webmasters.

    This  is the forth year in a row that Family Cookbook Project’s newsletter has been recognized by the Web Marketing Association as Best Cooking and Recipe Online Newsletter.

  • Anatomy of a Great Recipe

    Anatomy of a Great Recipe

    One of the keys to a great family cookbook is to have great recipes that your family and friends have come to love. Here are some simple tips to help you capture the magic of the food you make.

    1. Use catchy titles. Using a catchy title will make your recipe sound more interesting. It is more interesting to people when they see the title “Gooey Triple Chocolate Cake” rather than just “Chocolate Cake”. When you are writing a title for a recipe, try to think of not only what the final dish will be, but what makes it special as well.

    2. Include photos. Using images in your recipes can allow the person reading your cookbook to see what the final dish will look like and give then a guidepost to follow. Next time you make one of your special dishes, snap a quick photo and add it to your recipe the next time you log in.

    3. Be specific with your Ingredients. For many cooks, include a can of crushed tomatoes in your recipe and they know exactly what you mean or maybe not. Tell them to include a 12oz can of crushed tomatoes and everyone will know exactly what your recipe needs.

    4. Use step by step instructions. You might have made this recipe a thousand times, but someone new will need detailed directions for how to do it. Remember to include pan sizes, cooking times, the order that ingredients are added and how to tell when a dish is done. Also adding how many servings a recipe can make will help with meal planning.

    5. Add personal notes. One of the things that make a family cooks so important is that it helps to capture the family traditions. Include a note with each recipe about how you first were introduced to the recipe and when it is typically served in your household. It makes the recipe more interesting and more meaningful to later generations.

     

    Chip Lowell is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories. Follow Family Cookbook Project on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!

  • How To Create A Multi-Part Recipe

    How To Create A Multi-Part Recipe

    Have you ever had a cake recipe that really needed a specific frosting? Or a meat recipe that required a special sauce? Wouldn’t it be great if a a recipe could have sub recipes attached to keep them together?

    Many of our FamilyCookbookProject.com editors have asked for the ability to have multiple sections or steps in recipes. We like to listen and have added it! Now you can have up to 5 “sub” recipes or steps within a recipe, each with its own set of ingredients and directions. Example? You have Carrot Cake and you want a section for the “Cake” with its ingredients and directions, then “Cream Cheese Frosting” with another set of ingredients and directions.

    To use this feature, simply go to Add Recipe or Edit an existing recipe. First check the box for “Show subtitle and make a multi-part recipe” right under the contributor field. This will add a field for sub-recipe title.

    Using our example above, here is where you would add your carrot cake ingredients and directions.

    Next, click on the green button to “Add new sub recipe”. This will add fields for a second set of sub recipe title, ingredients and directions for your Cream Cheese Frosting.

    You can add up to five sub recipes for your overall recipe.

    When you are done, make sure to click on the green button on the bottom of the page to save your recipe before moving on to your next recipe.

     

    Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect, preserve and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. He is the author of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook (Available on Amazon) and the Cape Cod Cocktail Cookbook, both created using FamilyCookbookProject.com. He is also editor of the Donovan Family Cookbook, now it’s third printing.

    Follow Family Cookbook Project on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!